


Got the Music in You Baby (Tell Me Why)

by orphan_account



Category: Kpop - Fandom, NCT (Band), NCT 127 - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Coffeeshops, Fluff, Inspired by Music, JohnJae - Freeform, M/M, Musical References, Song fic, Soulmate AU, cigarettes after sex, music fic, side yutae, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:19:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22957795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: In a world where you always hear the music your soulmate is listening to, Johnny hears one sad love song on repeat. He decides to communicate with his soulmate through his favourite songs.Alternative title: Jaehyun Stop Playing 'Apocalypse' by Cigarettes After Sex Challenge.
Relationships: Jung Yoonoh | Jaehyun/Suh Youngho | Johnny, Lee Taeyong/Nakamoto Yuta
Comments: 12
Kudos: 203





	Got the Music in You Baby (Tell Me Why)

Johnny’s life was punctuated by music. It was the first thing he heard when he woke up in the morning, the cheesy tunes of morning TV or the dramatic beat of breaking news, and the last thing he heard before he went to sleep, either classical music that filled his ears and his heart with warmth and gently lulled him to sleep or the heavy, pounding bass of club music which kept him awake, staring at the ceiling wondering whether his soulmate was ok, whether he or she or it was boozed up, stumbling through the club, letting people who weren’t him press kisses into their neck. He didn’t enjoy those nights.

Generally, he enjoyed that he got to hear what music his soulmate chose to listen to. Some people thought that it was annoying or overbearing or too intimate. Not Johnny though. He liked learning about his soulmate through their music choices.

That is until he hears a single song on a loop continuously and it triggers a thousand thoughts to swarm around his head.

The first time he heard Apocalypse by Cigarettes After Sex he was in the middle of washing his dishes and had to stop his scrubbing to listen.

Got the music in you baby, tell me why

Got the music in you baby, tell me why

You've been locked in here forever and you just can't say goodbye

A moody song about lost love? Did his soulmate love and lose someone? Or was he the lost love his soulmate was searching for? Of course he might just like the song and not care for the lyrics - a lot of people like songs for the beat and the vibe and don’t listen to the lyrics, a lot of people now listen to foreign music that they can’t even understand! It doesn’t mean anything, Johnny told himself, he still has a chance with the person the universe created him to be with.

His hypothesis is proved very wrong when the song is played continuously for the next three weeks. You can’t play a song that much unless it really means something, right? It’s that thought that leads Johnny into this slump. He spends nights lying in his bed, staring at the ceiling and memorising the lyrics.

Your lips, my lips, apocalypse

Your lips, my lips, apocalypse

He finds himself annoyed, jealous. With soulmates there were two kinds of people: the people who believed it and the people who thought it was a load of optimistic cosmic bullshit. Johnny was the former. His mother was a romanticist and brought him up surrounded by the ideals of love. His parents were soulmates, met when they were young and lived in harmony since. Even after being married for years, they still surprised one another with flowers and gifts and dates. But it wasn’t the materialistic gestures that made Johnny believe in love. It was the look in his parents eyes when they looked at each other. There was nothing in the world more beautiful and there was nothing in the world that Johnny wanted but for someone to look at him the way his parents looked at each other. He believed in soulmates. He knew he had one because he heard the music they heard daily. He just had to find them. If he ever found them.

He just worried that his soulmates was the second kind of person. The type of person who despised anything to do with soulmates, who thought it was all made up by companies to get their money, who were cynical and tired and who thought _fuck it_. Those people didn’t wait to find their soulmate. They dated, fell in love, got married, had kids with people who weren’t their soulmate. In Johnny’s opinion they settled. They didn’t get what they deserved. They settled for less. Johnny worried that his soulmate had already settled for someone else. They didn’t believe in him, they didn’t care about him and they definitely weren’t searching or waiting for him. Of course Johnny had dated people but he knew none of them were The One. He’d wait, he’d search.

“You know what you should do!” Taeyong’s wide eyes lit up and it made them look larger than before. He’s drunk drunk. Off two drinks. He’s the laughing stock of their friendship group. “You should like… communicate with them.”

Johnny looked at his best friend over the rim of his beer bottle, confusion lacing his handsome face. “Communicate? I don’t know who they are Tae, I can’t call them up and ask hey wanna go on a date?”

“No,” Taeyong said moving closer and sloshing the alcohol in his glass. “Through music. You know the Spotify playlist meme? Like that.”

Johnny furrowed his brow in thought, Taeyong could actually be onto something. That was until Yuta, who had been listening in from his comfy spot in the corner of the sofa, leant forward and smacked Johnny on the back. “That requires his soulmate to have a brain and if they’re stupid enough to have this fool as a soulmate then they definitely don’t have a lot going on up there.”

“Oh Yuta, you wound me,” Johnny teased, used to his friends gently bullying him by now. “Of course, my idiot of a soulmate can’t actually read! That could never work.”

Taeyong rolled his eyes at Yuta’s antics and pushed him out of the conversation and back into his spot on the sofa. “Ignore him. Listen to me, I have good ideas.”

“Good ideas but shit alcohol tolerance,” Yuta yelled from the sofa. Taeyong flipped him off without looking at him.

“Or you know,” Taeyong continued, “Be alone forever and suffer. It’s up to you.”

Johnny woke up the next morning with a hangover, his two best friends sleeping huddled together on his sofa and the sound of Apocalypse in his head.

Come out and haunt me, I know you want me

Come out and haunt me

He took two painkillers, drank a pint of water and made breakfast, shaking the idiots awake and gesturing to their food on his kitchen table. They ate in relative silence, not wanting to talk about when Yuta drank enough to match Taeyong’s level of inebriated and they started aggressively making out on Johnny’s sofa. For two people who took the piss out of him for wanting to find his soulmate, they sure were blind to what was drawing the two of them together. Hint: it wasn’t just the alcohol.

They left after they’d finished their food, sharing sheepish looks that promised they’d actually talk about what happened this time. They left Johnny in silence and in the silence the thoughts came swimming in. His head was silent of music - which was quite uncommon as his soulmate loved to listen to music - so he decided he’d play some of his own.

Taeyong might’ve been drunk, eyes unfocused and words slurred, but he had a good idea. And Yuta, although he was just being a bitch, also made a good point. Perhaps making a playlist that spelled out all the things he wanted to say to his soulmate would be too difficult to decipher. So he went to his Spotify app and instead of making an elaborate playlist, he played a single song.

Yeah, are you my soulmate, my angel?

What do you want with me?

The song played and finished and he was joined by the silence once again. He waited. He didn’t know what for. But he waited.

오래기다렸지안녕

나의Soulmate

_You waited for a long time_

_Hello, my soulmate_

The music filled Johnny’s head but it didn’t come from his Spotify app. His soulmate was playing the music he could hear. His soulmate had answered his call. He had to sit down at his kitchen island to keep himself upright as he listened carefully to the words of the song. Then, it came to an end and he knew it was his turn to say something. His hands shook as they cradled his phone and he scrolled through Spotify to find something to reply. Something.

Let me be your soulmate for the night

Just for the night, for the night

A Justin Timberlake song about fucking. Nice one Johnny.

His soulmate doesn’t seem to mind though.

I want you by my side,

More than a night.

A song from a Japanese game? God he was in love with them. He spent the rest of the day hunched over his phone, playing song after song after song and receiving them back, having a weird but breathtaking conversation with his soulmate in three minute intervals. They played everything from pop to classical to rap to country to try and tell the other how they felt. He fell asleep with a wide smile on his face and the sound of

Baby good night

꿈속에그려보던순간에난

그대로멈춰버리고만싶어

다시널내품에안기를원해

아직

_Baby good night_

_The moment I drew you out in my dreams_

_I just wanted time to stop_

_I want you back in my arms_

_Still_

He spent his Sunday the same way. He exchanged songs with his soulmate and fell harder and harder and harder. He texted Taeyong at lunchtime saying “I’M TALKING TO MY SOULMATE IN SONGS YOU’RE A GENIUS TAE!” and then was too busy finding songs to play for his soulmate that he forgot to reply when Taeyong replied with 21 messages half of which were just “ahdfeueiqhudgguwd”.

The curtain dropped when Monday morning came and he had to drag himself into work and wasn’t allowed to listen to music all day, let alone have the time to find songs that explain how he felt for the faceless person. His soulmate woke him that morning with Lionel Richie’s _Good Morning_ but Johnny had slept past his alarm and was late and had no time to reply with a song of his own. Then he had to work late and by the time he was home and had thought of a song to send that would make up for his silence the whole day, he hears it again.

Got the music in you baby, tell me why

Got the music in you baby, tell me why

You've been locked in here forever and you just can't say goodbye

Had he fucked up already? His soulmate must know he has other commitments other than just sending them songs all day, right? They won’t be mad? Still, Johnny, even before moving through his routine of showering and changing into sweatpants, grabbed his phone and found a simple song.

I'm sorry 가지마잊지마날

내가옆에있을게

너만바라봐줄게난tonight

_I’m sorry don’t go, don’t forget me_

_I’ll be there with you_

_I’ll only see you tonight_

He waited with bated breath thinking he’d ruined whatever this was before it had even started. But then…

Work, work, work, work, work, work

You see me I be work, work, work, work, work, work

Johnny grinned. He forgot about his shower and his sweatpants and nearly forgot about making dinner, sitting at his kitchen island in his work suit and tie arched over his phone playing song after song after song for the person he loved.

It went on like that for a couple of weeks. They learnt things about each other through their song choices. Obviously it’s difficult to say “ _I work in finance_ ” through songs but Johnny was pretty sure his soulmate was male (definitely not complaining), was in his twenties (he had played _Babe_ by Hyuna but that could mean he was 26, 25, 24 or 21) and was Korean and probably from Seoul much to Johnny’s luck (he played a lot of Korean songs and began to play songs of specific places in Seoul like Zion T’s _Yanghwa BRDG_ ). His soulmate was a pretty Korean boy around his age living in Seoul? It couldn’t be better. Many people’s soulmates lived in different countries or even continents. He wasn’t opposed to moving for his soulmate but it would be more difficult to find him if he was foreign.

The more they communicated and the more they learnt about each other, the more and more excited Johnny got of the concept of them meeting. Seoul was big but it was full of opportunity. Johnny found himself out of his apartment more, in the streets of Seoul trying to find the man who held his heart. He went to museums he’d been to once and thought he didn’t need to go to again, to parks to just sit on a bench and wait, to cafes and restaurants and libraries. He doesn’t find him.

He waited. Because he promised himself he would.

The weeks turned into months and the communication dwindled. They’re both busy with life and after a while there’s not much more they can say. Johnny didn’t lose hope but he lost patience. Taeyong and Yuta (who had finally realised that they were soulmates and could always hear what music the other was listening to, idiots) were getting tired of his rants and his tears.

“Seoul isn’t that big, why can’t I find him?” Johnny cried once with his head in Taeyong’s lap, his tears wetting the blue denim beneath him.

“It’s big when you’re looking for someone and all you have to find them is their music,” Taeyong said softly. He carded his fingers through Johnny’s hair. “Maybe you should stop looking. Good things come to those who wait and all. You’re just upsetting yourself looking for him like this.”

Johnny sat up and pulled away. “You were the one who told me to communicate with him, Tae. And now you’re telling me to give up?”

“Not give up,” Taeyong said delicately, trying not to aggravate his emotionally unstable friend. “Just… stop waring yourself out searching physically like this. Play him your songs by all means. Just don’t go prowling the streets for him.”

Johnny wanted to ignore him and _prowl the streets_ just to be petty but Taeyong was right and he was tired. He’d spend his weekends and evenings after work searching, heading over to Itaewon or Myeong-dong to try and find a man who he didn’t know anything about. In the end, he stayed home. He begun to understand the second type of person who didn’t believe in soulmates. This was impossible.

Though he stopped searching physically, he carried on exchanging songs with his soulmate. Whether that was songs for each other or just songs they liked and wanted to share. And the one constant was always Apocalypse.

Oh, when you're all alone, I will reach for you

When you're feeling low, I will be there, too

But then, Johnny noticed that his soulmate was playing him songs in the same order on repeat. They still exchanged songs like normal, Apocalypse was played more often than not but now there were seven other songs played by his soulmate.

Jasmine - DRP Live

Acquainted - The Weeknd

Eat - Zion T

Hard Place - H.E.R

Your Song - BOA

Unique - Goldlink

No Scrubs - TLC

What did those songs in that order mean? It must mean something because it was always _those_ songs in _that_ order. What was the hidden message? Johnny spent weeks trying to figure it out. In the margin of his notebook at work, next to the numbers and calculations, he wrote the names of the songs, their lyrics, the question “what do they have in common?”. He couldn’t figure it out.

Weeks later and with a headache that wouldn’t go away no matter how much water he drank or how many painkillers he took, he gave up. He ripped pages out of his notebook, screwed them up and chucked them in the bin. He put earplugs in as if that would help him stop hearing his soulmate’s music in his head. He understood a little more why people hated soulmates.

Almost a year after he first played that song for his soulmate, Johnny walked into a cafe and stood at the back of the line. There were delays on the subway so he got off a stop earlier than he normally would to reach work. He was dead on his feet so he decided to stop off to grab a coffee from a cafe next to the subway station, a cafe he’d never been to before as he usually went to the coffee shop next to his work building.

He was imagining the delicious bitter taste of coffee on his tongue and how it was gonna give him a kick up the arse to wake him up when he heard it.

Got the music in you baby, tell me why

Got the music in you baby, tell me why

You've been locked in here forever and you just can't say goodbye

He heard it simultaneously from two places. One: in his head, his soulmate was listening to it again. Two: muffled and quiet from the headphones of the pretty boy sat at a table to his left, typing away on his laptop.

Johnny couldn’t breathe. This couldn’t be real. It was just a coincidence.

But Apocalypse ended and the next song played, _A Whole New World_ from the new Aladdin film and it played both in his head and from the man’s headphones before the man jabbed at the previous key and the first few beats of Apocalypse played again.

Johnny was shaking. No longer did he need coffee to wake him up. This was him. It had to be.

He left the line, walked over to his table and stopped in front of the man who was so immersed in what he was doing on his laptop that he didn’t notice Johnny was stood in front of him.

Not until Johnny sat on the chair opposite him and softly sang along with the song.

Your lips, my lips, apocalypse

Your lips, my lips, apocalypse

The man looked up and _god, he’s beautiful_. His face is a picture of striking shock, plump lips twisted in surprise, pretty almond brown eyes wide, thick eyebrows furrowed.

“Are you…?” he asked and his voice is deep and thick and honey-like.

“I’m Johnny,” Johnny reached out his hand for the pretty boy to shake, “and I think you’re my soulmate.”

“What did it mean?” Johnny asked as Netflix loaded up on his TV.

Jaehyun, his boyfriend, his Soulmate (!!!), sunk down into the sofa next to him and wrapped his large body around Johnny’s even larger body. At the last minute he remembered the bowl of popcorn on the coffee table, unwrapped himself slightly to grab it and then settled back where he belonged, sandwiched between Johnny’s body and the bowl of warm popcorn.

“What did what mean?” he asked, popping a piece of popcorn in his mouth.

“Those seven songs you used to send me?” Johnny said, distracted for a moment by Jaehyun’s thick bottom lip as he chewed.

“The-“ Jaehyun was confused for a moment before he remembered and grinned and Johnny fell harder at his dimples. “Oh them! Look at the first letter of each song. What do they spell out?”

Jasmine - DRP Live

Acquainted - The Weeknd

Eat - Zion T

Hard Place - H.E.R

Your Song - BOA

Unique - Goldlink

No Scrubs - TLC

“Jaehyun,” Johnny said after a moment and immediately feels like a fool for not realising it sooner. “You were giving me massive hints and I was too stupid to see them. Maybe Yuta’s right and I don’t have a brain.”

Jaehyun laughed but pulled his boyfriend in for a soft kiss on the lips. “Not stupid. You tried hard and I love you for it.”

“I love you too.”

Netflix had loaded by the time their gentle kisses died out. They found something to watch and munched on popcorn as the title screen played.

“Wait,” Johnny said after a moment. He couldn’t help but laugh. “ _No Scrubs_?”

“If you didn’t have a good job, a house and a car I wasn’t gonna be with you,” Jaehyun teased, turning his nose up dramatically.

“I don’t have a car, Jae.”

“Really? Boy bye!”

**Author's Note:**

> thank u for reading! follow me on twit at @ncttitty 
> 
> the songs used were:
> 
> soulmate - mac miller  
> soulmate - zico  
> soulmate - justin timberlake  
> more than a night - a one  
> good night - exo  
> good morning - lionel richie  
> sorry - the rose  
> jasmine - dpr live  
> acquainted - the weekend  
> eat - zion t  
> hard place - h.e.r  
> your song - boa  
> unique - goldlink  
> no scrubs - tlc


End file.
